


Just pretend (and one day it may be okay)

by silver_sun



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley POV, Crowley dealing with things by not actually dealing with them, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Holding Hands, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not talking about things, Post Series, aziraphale is trying to help, crowley has a lot of issues, mostly introspective, something that might be considered self harm so I'll warn for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-11-02 06:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_sun/pseuds/silver_sun
Summary: Crowley finds that sometimes it's the small things that bring the memories crashing back in.





	Just pretend (and one day it may be okay)

Park Fic a/c

It shouldn't get to him, not after all this time, Crowley thought miserably. It was stupid. He was stupid, he chastised himself as he tried to blank out the news footage he'd unfortunately managed to see. Seriously why did the shop even have the TVs switched on in the first place? All he'd been doing was a little bit of tempting. Trying to persuade a young couple to buy a ridiculously big TV that they didn't actually have room for was hardly the worst thing he'd ever done.

He scowled at himself. All he needed was a couple of minutes and a few deep breathes, then he'd be ready to get up to a little bit of mostly harmless mischief again. It wasn't like Hell was actually giving him orders any more, but old habits died hard. 

Not that he actually needed to breath, well not apart from when he was talking. You needed air to pass over vocal cords to make sound after all. Not that he was in the mood for talking. Not about this. Not about how sometimes it was the stupid little things got to him. Nope, not talking, not even a little bit. Not now. Preferable not ever.

He closed his eyes. Breathing was okay. Breathing didn't require thought. There was something about focusing on the movement of air in and out of his lungs that seemed to help. Well sometimes anyway. It was a nice, mindless distraction at least and right now oh how he needed one of those.

Not that today it seemed to be doing a damn thing. As despite the fact he was in the relatively clean air of St James Park (it was after all still central London) he could almost feel the smoke catching at the back of his throat. The heat, the noise, the smell of burning flesh, the air rushing past him, faster and faster.

Crowley eyes snapped open behind his ever present sunglasses. Leaning against the railing by the pond, he curled hand into fists, nails digging into his palms. It hurt in a small, inconsequential way. The dull little points of pain were something he could focus on, he told himself. Something he could use to block out the other pain. The one that, while no longer physical, was agonising all the same.

He was a demon. A millennias old demon. The snake of Eden. The great tempter. The architect of original sin. Yet here he was trying not to think or breathe or generally crumple into a puddle of misery next to a duck pond on a damp Tuesday afternoon. He was pathetic. That's what he was, he thought with a viciousness that, if he was honest (and wasn't that just another failure for a demon to have) he only ever reserved for himself. He was more pathetic than even the most useless, uncooperative and spotty of his stupid, ungrateful plants.

The utter inhumanity humans managed to conceive and inflict on each other shouldn't surprise him. He'd seen them at their worst so very many times. But the fire, the people so obviously burning, the screams that broadcaster had obviously muted, the looks of horror on the onlookers faces, played into too many nightmares. How did humans stand such misery brought in technicolour into their living rooms? It didn't seem to matter how much he told himself that shouldn't get to him. The fact was it did and since the whole 'apocalypse that wasn't' with it's burning sword, burning car and burning bookshop it had got worse. So much worse.

Crowley dug his nails harder into his palms. They felt damp. Sweat or whether he'd broken the skin he had no desire to find out or to stop. The sharp points of contact were the only things anchoring him, stopping him from slowly drowning in under a flood tide hideous memories.

He hung his head. Why couldn't he stop himself from thinking like this? He was supposed to be evil. He was supposed to revel in suffering and despair. To delight in humans destroying their fragile little bodies and souls. The thing was he'd never actually enjoyed that part. Not really. Sure he'd seriously annoyed and inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of people down the centuries. Tempted them, annoyed them, made them do things that they and those around them would definitely regret. He'd got them to break the law, to break their hearts and in one case to break several bottles of very expensive perfume in an ill timed juggling accident. The fact was painful messy deaths really weren't his forte. He was an awful, useless, pathetic excuse for a demon and everyone in Heaven and Hell knew it.

The problem was he been awful at being an angel too. Why else had they got rid of him? He'd been too questioning of the rules that had seemed so senseless to him. Too eager to rail against the confines and strictures of Heaven, thinking all he was doing was shaking things up a bit, bringing a little bit mischief and excitement to the other stuffy, rule bound angels. He'd never expected to be punished so harshly, to be cast out for all eternity. He'd been so stupid. The bitterness rose in his throat, threatening to choke off the air he didn't need.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have been so utterly naive that he'd failed to contemplate that he could Fall or what the Fall would mean? Admittedly he'd been amongst the first. Obviously not the first, that had been Lucifer himself after all. That said everyone knew it was BAD in great big, huge, fiery, capital letters. Not that that had done it justice. Nothing did.

His eyes stung and his dug his nails in just that bit harder and tried to breath again. It hurt. Everything hurt. It was in these moments that even his mind seemed to turn on him, telling him that it was only right he hurt. That he should feel like this until the end of time. He was damned. He was the fallen. There was no help or forgiveness. Not for him. Not for this. Not ever. He didn't deserve peace or rest or comfort or...

A hand closed gently over the top of his. Warmer, softer and plumper than his own. He didn't need to open his eyes to know whose it was. 

He vaguely contemplated opening up a sinkhole and dropping into it as a means of escape. Was it possible to discorporate out of utter embarrassment? Or was it fear? He couldn't quite trust himself to tell them apart any more. So in the end he stayed very still and did nothing. 

A gentle, careful caress of his hands. Fingers moving between his to slow uncurl them. The sting as his nails pulled free of his palm drew a hiss from him, despite his best attempts not to make a sound.

Aziraphale made a soft, sad little noise, then took his hands gently, but firmly in his. There was a feeling like a static shock only with more tingle and less surprise or pain, and the raw marks on his hands disappeared. "I really wish you wouldn't let yourself get in such a state, my dear."

It was faintly disapproving, but mostly it was tired. Crowley wished it was anger. Something he could rail against. Something he could push away and feel justified in doing it. He was glad his eyes were still closed, because he could barely deal with Aziraphale's hurt tone. The face, all honest concern and sad blue eyes full of soft, careworn love would do him in for sure.

"After all we've been through, I really wish that you could trust me enough to...”

"To what? To about it?" Crowley interrupted. No, he really, really didn't want to do that. What would be the point in raking over all that hurt, dredging up all the ways he'd failed. It couldn't change the past, all it would do was make the present uncomfortable and things weird between him and Aziraphale. Not that they hadn't been in the long months since the world world failed to end.

The smoke that wasn't really there scoured his lungs as took a breath and tried to get on with the task of deflecting the well meaning concern that he absolutely couldn't deal with. "Nope, I'm good," he said, quite impressed that he managed to sound so flippant. "Well you know, not good good, demon after all, but I'm alright. So no, nothing to talk about, unless you've got something to say.”

Aziraphale sighed and let go of his hands. It was an irritated noise that really didn't sound like it should come from a heavenly being. "Fine, could you at least tell me how to make it better? You know I hate seeing you like this."

Make it better? Crowley thought bitterly. How? What precisely did Aziraphale think he was going to be able to do? He wasn't a kid with a skinned knee that could be cheered up with a hug and the promise of ice cream. Not that he'd have said no to either, but that was hardly the point. The painful, inconvenient truth was that the things in his head, more than six millennia's worth of accumulated awfulness weren't going to go away with a bit of a chat whether it came it a hug or not. So he forced a smile that they both knew was every bit as fake as it was desperate. It was dance around the truth they'd both been doing for centuries. Today it was his turn. "Just pretend, just for now."

Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He repeated it three more times, looking ever more frustrated with himself. Finally he took Crowley's hand in his and gave it a small squeeze. "In that case, my dear. I got some new bottles of wine I think you'd love to try. Shall we go?"

Crowley nodded, not trusting his voice. He was cold and tired and everything seemed to ache, which was all rather unpleasant, but it's was on the whole a definite improvement. It meant the worst of it had passed for now. He could risk breathing again. The air didn't smell of dew or roses or some stupidly romantic nonsense like scent of hope. No, the perfectly ordinary air smelt of damp leaves and wet grass, overlaid with London's ever present car exhaust fumes. It was so ridiculously normal it made him feel weak with relief.

There wasn't a cure for the things he'd seen down all those long centuries or for what he's done or what had been done to him. Some days Crowley wasn't even sure he'd want one. He was, as every living thing was, a sum of all his experiences good, bad and indifferent. Admittedly it was the bad ones that tended to ambush him at inopportune moments with all the grace of smack round the head with a house brick. No, the best that he could hope for was that the metaphorical brick would be a small one and that if he was really lucky a certain fussy, infuriating angel would be there to distract him from the pain.

So he let Azirphale hold his hand as they walked on through the park together. Or maybe he was the one doing the holding, Crowley wasn't sure. It wasn't like it was important, he decided, they were going the same way after all. They always had been, it had just taken them a long time to admit it. A small, real smile tugged at his lips. They were together, the world wasn't ending, they were safe and for now that was all that mattered.


End file.
